EARLY WESTERN RAILROADS. 
85 
" Timber. — In proportion as buildings accumulate around the road, as 
population increases, and as the wants of culture diffuse themselves, will 
be the want of this valuable article, to which in fact hardly any limit 
can be placed in a region so denuded of wood as Dartmoor. 
" Coal. — Next to timber justly ranks this essential of domestic life. 
" Culm. 
" Groceries. — Tea and sugar are become absolute necessaries in the present 
day, and these, added to wine, spirits, beer, porter, and other household 
requisites, would be sure to give birth to a productive tonnage. 
" Furniture. — The colonisation of Dartmoor will carry in its train a necessity 
not only for the importable commodities before spoken of, but for many 
others, which, though of comparatively inferior consequence, will be more 
or less wanted by the colonists. Amongst them is furniture. 
" The use of this term [colonisation] the author hopes will not be objected 
to ; it being equally applicable, in his opinion, to the improvements con- 
templated on Dartmoor as to like designs in Canada. 
"Planting. — In the progress of colonisation the formation of plantations 
will become essentially requisite, as much for the sake of rural embellishment 
as to protect the newly-enclosed grounds and buildings. 
" EXPORTABLE COMMODITIES. 
" Granite. — Beside the weightier stone for government or private uses, the 
Company would be enabled to supply, with the same ease and profusion, 
curbs and paving stones, gate-posts, highway stones, and gravel, at a rate 
which, it is presumed, would undersell those procurable in any other quarter. 
"Peat. — It is impossible to view the face of Dartmoor without feeling 
sensible of the numerous uses to which the superabundance of peat in this 
district may be applied. Amongst others, the heat given by a combination 
of peat with coal is allowed to be exceedingly powerful ; and the author 
has reason to believe that iron, fused with this admixture, is less liable 
to crack than when coal alone is employed in the process. 
" Mining Products. — Mr. Mawes, the celebrated mineralogist, who has 
investigated the forest of Dartmoor with much attention, is of the opinion that 
the latter contains the mineralogical productions of almost every clime, with 
but few exceptions. If iron, copper, and tin could be raised and smelted on 
the spot, without the necessity of resorting elsewhere, the saving of expense, 
both to Government and the public, might be decidedly pronounced in- 
calculable. 
"Flax. — This next article, unlike the preceding ones, is not indigenous ; 
but experiments have proved that it may be naturalized on the soil of 
Dartmoor, and perhaps to an extent which will ultimately render unnecessary 
all foreign importations of it— for the port of Plymouth, at least, and its 
neighbourhood. 
" Hemp. — If hemp can be reared on the bogs of Russia, it is without 
doubt equally capable of cultivation on Dartmoor and Roborough Down. " 
Travelling Vehicles and Parcels are also included among the 
sources of income, as also is the Transfer of Convicts to Dartmoor 
Prison. 
Such being the benefits which, in all good faith, were stated to 
